Is grad school for you?

Whether it's public health or public policy, there's myriad programs out there to choose from.

Laying the foundations: Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government invested heavily in the 'knowledge economy'.

By:Nora Underwood Published on Thu Oct 03 2013

In 2005, the Ontario Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty made the largest multi-year investment in post-secondary education in 40 years. With the Reaching Higher program, the Liberals invested $6.2 billion over five years — a 39-per-cent increase compared to 2004-2005 — with the aim of ensuring that 70 per cent of students would have a post-secondary education, a necessary prerequisite, the McGuinty government said, for prosperity “in today’s knowledge economy.”

With tuition ranging from $5,500 to more than $38,000 for some master’s of business administration programs, the question is: Is graduate school for everyone?

Certainly, for some students in certain fields — law, teaching, business, dentistry, medicine, among others — it’s a must. But for students in other areas of interest, it’s not as clear-cut.

“It’s never made sense for absolutely everybody,” says Brian Corman, dean of the School of Graduate Studies and vice-provost of graduate education at the University of Toronto.

“For us, there are two kinds of students coming to grad school these days,” he says. “The ones motivated to get into a research program and the ones who are in what has been for the province the growth area for the last number of years, the professional master’s degree.”

Among the more popular programs, he adds, are the master of public policy or of global affairs, as well as in public health and some of the engineering programs. “These are master’s degrees with a serious research component that are preparing people for particular places,” Corman says.

That doesn’t mean that arts and humanities students shouldn’t consider grad school. In fact, anyone who is considering a future in academia in their chosen field would go to grad school.

According to Debbie Mundell, career information coordinator at Queen’s University in Kingston, further education is a way for arts and humanities students to pursue related programs. An English undergrad, for example, might focus on public relations in grad school or a history student might move into museum management and curatorship.

“The reasons you do the degree depends on you,” says Corman. “We would expect is you have the brains and the drive to do it. Where it’s going to take you is a much more personal thing. The one obligation we have to potential students is to be clear that doing the degree does not guarantee anything at the end of the line.”

Mundell agrees: “There a misconception that you have to go to grad school to get a job, and that is simply not true,” she says.

“If a student came to me and said, ‘I have no idea what else to do,’ that would be a real red flag,” she says. And those for whom graduate school could mean a lifetime of debt might do well to consider other options first.

Says Corman: “We can guarantee students a great education and get them ready for all sorts of things, but we’re not going to be handing out jobs. In that sense, things are no different now than when I was a student.”

But for the right people with the right intentions, both Corman and Mundell agree, graduate school is an excellent choice. It provides the opportunity to go deeply into an area of interest or to pursue research in a chosen field.